I bought this baby outfit a few weeks back because it was cute and lovely. But it is really most suitable for a girl baby. At this point we don’t know if we are having a girl or a boy.
Since the embryo was replaced within me, we’ve called the future baby ‘Kipling’ and we’ve referred to Kipling as a he.
When the embryologist went to thaw out our embryo on Thursday, we lost one in the process.
This is normal – only 85% survive the thaw. Blastocysts (five day old embryos) are relatively big and expanded groups of cells and ours were graded 4 and 5 which means they were plenty expanded. When you freeze them the ice goes inside the cells, so when you thaw them you can have trouble getting all of the ice out. They can crack, and become unviable. That’s what happened to the first one of ours that they tried to thaw this time, so they discarded it.
I feel totally fine about having lost one. I don’t consider it a baby and I don’t grieve for it, I’m not worried about having one fewer in the pot for next time.
“The odds are in my favour, man” (Don’t break the rules, Catch me if you can)
So at the moment I’m ‘Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise’ – that’s pretty cool. We had such a wonderful positive experience at the frozen embryo transfer yesterday that I have even been feeling quite hopeful. It was so good to have the embryologist say that in her professional opinion it is unlucky that we’ve not succeeded with the IVF yet and that it is very likely that we’ll see success soon. This time, hopefully.
I used to know about statistics. I have an A Level in Maths and an AS Level in Further Maths. My job has a statistical component. But I’ve forgotten much of what I used to know and the stats around this IVF stuff are rather complex.
So very conveniently my monthly infertility counselling session coincided with my embryo transfer day. That’s handy, just one trip required. And even better, the husband was free today so he decided to chum me to the embryo transfer – and go early and work on his laptop in the hospital coffee shop so that he could give me a lift.
I have been feeling very tired these last few days, very heavy and sleepy. The husband went to the pub last night and I was asleep when he came home. That never ever happens, usually I am an extreme night owl and there’s no way I’d be asleep before midnight.
I also feel just on the edge of sick.
And I have a runny nose.
Today is the first day of the two week wait. This is the day that my eggs would be fertilised if they were not fertilised already. My fertilised eggs were kept out of me in the test tube for six days, hence as they are already six days old they’ll not put them back in til Thursday.
As of today I’m on a new drugs regime, in preparation for the frozen embryo transfer on Thursday. Folic acid and HRT as before, plus progesterone. The progesterone is a pessary that I have to stick up my vajayjay twice a day. I don’t seem to have any side effects, but it does drip out as a white waxy paste and is quite messy and gross.
It must be a busy month at the IVF clinic, because yet again I had to wait 50 minutes in the waiting room today. I would rather have spent that time in bed…
But things got better.
Eek, tomorrow is an important day in the IVF process. I’ll be going in first thing for a scan to see how the HRT is going. If all is well I’ll be able to move on to the frozen embryo transfer and preparation for this. I could have an embryo in me this time next week. Fingers crossed.
This appointment has rather crept up on me, it has not been front of mind at all. I keep noticing it in my Outlook calendar. Then promptly forgetting. See, still forgetful! I have had to write myself a note or I’ll sleep through it.
It was all going so well with work and IVF this time… until now.
Outwith my control a carefully timed work thing in London was supposed to be yesterday but was postponed at the last minute and now has to be rearranged. Now I need to reschedule it for the end of the month to fit in with client deadlines and to give a required bit of notice to attenders.
So I need to be away probably two nights / one day in London. And it needs to be in October. But in the remaining three weeks of October I will need to go to the IVF clinic first for the embryo transfer and later for a pregnancy test.
Unfortunately I cannot yet know when the embryo transfer (and thus by association the pregnancy test) will take place, so I cannot know which days I am not available to go to London. But for various tedious administrative reasons I need to reschedule today.
Argh, how to do this?
I bought a new nightdress this weekend, for the frozen embryo transfer. Being more of a pyjama fan I didn’t previously have a nightie and this has been fairly inconvenient for the two embryo transfers I’ve had before. When you get there they ask you to wear nightwear to walk across to the room where they do the transfer and you get up on a bed then you have to take your PJ bottoms off. It isn’t really set up for this, they hold towels up and you have to wriggle about to get them off and then back on again at the end. A nightie is much better you can just roll it up. I previously didn’t bother getting a nightie specially as I saw it as a waste of money and an admission of my expectation that I would need to use it several times. And that didn’t seem very hopeful. Ah well, here we are. I thought if I bought said nightie at this point I could pretend to myself that it wasn’t a big deal or a special purchase.
Baby Maybe 